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A grandparent’s love is a special kind of love

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” — Maya Angelou

Popcorn gazes out the window of his grandparents' Thunder Bay home with a little help from Grandpa Pete. (scott colby photo)

When I first read this quote I immediately thought of my grandparents. I didn’t get to see them very often after my family moved from Ann Arbor, Mich., to Thunder Bay. That was in 1971, a few months before I turned 6.

We saw them every summer during our two-week vacation to Grand Rapids, where my dad’s parents lived, and Battle Creek, where my mom’s parents lived. Every year they tried to make the two-day drive to see us.

About two weeks a year wasn’t much time together, but my brothers and I knew our grandparents loved us deeply. Like the great writer said, I can’t recall exactly what they said, or a lot of what they did, but I know how being with them made me feel — like the most important person on Earth.

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My mom’s mom, Cora, was the oldest, born in 1892, 11 years before the Wright brothers’ first flight (and the same year the Toronto Star was founded). She also lived the longest, dying at age 99 in a nursing home in Texas. I was 26, but hardly saw her in her final 10 years.

My other grandparents all died a year apart, when I was 13, 14 and 15. They were not in my life very long, but the memories and feelings are still vivid.

Grandma Cora loved to bake. When we arrived at her house I’d run through the front door, pull up the stool and reach in the cupboard for the cookie jar. I didn’t even say hi.

She was also a shrewd Chinese checkers player. I could never beat her.

Her husband, Norm, was a quiet, gentle man with a full head of grey, curly hair. He loved to terrify us in the morning by taking out his false teeth, covering his face in shaving cream and chasing us around the house. We loved it.

My dad’s parents were about 20 years younger and they were cool. Grandma Betty loved rock ‘n’ roll. I remember dancing with her to Jerry Lee Lewis. She would also take us to the mall and buy us records.

Grandpa Dutch was my favourite. He was a portrait photographer. The summer before he died he gave us a Pentax K1000 35-mm camera. It launched my journalism career five years later. It still works. I remember writing him letters. He wrote back on his new four-colour typewriter; each paragraph a different colour.

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As I sat at my parents’ dining room table last week in Thunder Bay writing this column, with Popcorn and Sweet Pea asleep in my old room, I wondered what memories they’ll have of their grandparents. They are 8 months old. My parents turn 80 this year.

My dad, Pete, said this month, “I have to live to be 90 to see them turn 10.”

We had so much fun on the day we arrived, watching Grandpa help Popcorn pull himself up to look out the bay window at the bird-filled, snowy backyard, banging the sill with a plastic cup, smiling the whole time.

Or Sweet Pea, giggling in her high chair at the dinner table, flashing her bottom two teeth as Grandma Dorothy played peek-a-boo and made funny sounds. I wanted to grab my phone and shoot some video, but I also wanted to enjoy the moment. I stayed in my chair.

Natasha’s parents live a 25-minute drive from our house and see their only grandchildren every week. They indulge in each second they have to hold and cuddle and smile and play with them. My mother-in-law would kill me if I printed her age, but let’s say she and her husband are younger than my parents and I expect to see them at the kids’ high school graduation.

Babies know who love them. Nothing feels as special as the love of a grandparent.

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